


The Definition of a Plane

by florahart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angry Sex, Loneliness, M/M, Multiple Points of View, Not AU, Power Dynamics, Unhealthy Relationships, absence of fidelity, arguably hate sex, canon-compliant deaths, limitedly- present james/lily, sex between students who are of age in the UK but not the US, sex that is largely not about love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-15
Updated: 2008-02-15
Packaged: 2019-08-05 15:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16369826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: A three-legged stool, even if  the legs are incongruent and the seat is ugly, even if the ground on which it sets is uneven, is generally stable.Basically: three men in a complicated triangle spanning decades encompassing a war in which they are only sort of on the same side.





	The Definition of a Plane

**Author's Note:**

> I marked no warnings apply because these are not character deaths you don't already know about, but I want to be clear: the end of canon remains intact. Also: because this includes all three legs of a triangle, there was no single point of view; the POV rotates/shifts.
> 
> This was originally posted as an exchange gift in 2008, for snegurochka_lee. There's a lot of porn, and a lot of feelings, but not a lot of happiness. I'm telling you this for the sake of truth in advertising. :)

**-::- prologue -::-**

Severus folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall, observing carefully for all he was doing his best to appear bored. Mother had said to wait here while she disagreed rather vigorously with Periwinkle Goyle, an absurdly-named woman with three wobbling chins and immensely wide shoulders that cleared Severus's head by a good eleven inches.

Severus was short for his age, but not _that_ short. He momentarily considered getting out the new wand he wasn't supposed to have used yet, and setting it atop his head just to see how accurate his estimated measurement was, but it was in his trunk, and besides, getting it out would only invite it being stolen. He looked away.

He pushed off from the wall with his shoulders, not freeing his hands from where each was holding its opposite's elbow, and moved several feet along, away from the uncomfortable disagreement. From here, he could watch as his new classmates appeared through the column one by one, trying to decide what name belonged to whom. He only knew Mrs Goyle's name because Mother had said it; else he was stuck relying on what she'd told him as she described the friends Father didn't suffer in his household and didn't allow Mother to take Severus along to visit.

He was still not quite past his shock that he was, in fact, to be allowed to go to Hogwarts. He suspected Mother had put something in his tea, and that she'd have hell to pay for it. He approved. 

Ah. That one had to be a Black. Severus kept his eyelids lowered, examining the dirt under his fingernails as the boy went by, strutting ridiculously, and tried to recall whether the one that was just his age was Sirius or Regulus.

This was answered readily enough, when a slender blonde he took to be about sixteen--the youngest of Walpurga Black's nieces, he surmised--approached from the other side and called him by name.

That one coming back away from the train was clearly Mrs Goyle's son. He was berating a mousy-looking boy Severus guessed to be near his own age, and was evidently both as broad and opinionated as his mother. Severus guessed he might be thirteen, and hoped for a moment he was somehow a Hufflepuff; a moment later a glimpse of his muffler proved that hope false. Damn. He didn't object to being schooled with other children with strong personalities--it was sure to be better than coping with the mealy-mouthed imbeciles of his Muggle neighborhood--but he'd hoped for intelligence over brute force, of which he'd had quite enough at home. 

Well, he'd likely have some company in the Black boy. The strutting probably meant he was the popular sort, accustomed to getting his way, and while Severus wasn't entirely pleased with the notion of being a follower, he hoped to enjoy the sort of reflected popularity he'd seen in his primary school, where certain boys were the ones everyone else wanted to please, and those around him were secure.

Else, he'd be the quiet solitary one again, and while he didn't object to solitude in principle, the position was inherently _in_ secure, in a group setting, and he was painfully aware that his lank, difficult hair and large pale nose would make him a target. He tried, for a moment, to think that he couldn't possibly get stuck with that role again; it wouldn't be fair. Of course, he was clear on the unfairness of life and the world, so it wasn't a position he could keep hold of for more than a few seconds. 

He went back to watching the uneven groups passing by, in pairs and threes that flowed and separated into different pairs or threes as friends found each other.

Mother was still arguing.

"Need any help with your trunk, then?"

Severus whipped his head around and looked up at a gangling young man with thin red-gold hair and glasses that had been bent and repaired several times too many. "I can get it."

"Of course you can. Still, it's easier to direct them with two people steering, don't you think?" The young man held out his hand. "I'm Arthur. I don't think I know your family; are you Muggle-born?"

Severus took the hand suspiciously, and shook his head, mute.

"Ah, well, I don't know everyone. I was just hoping you might have contraband."

Severus blinked, then drew back his hand, even more suspicious than he had been a moment ago. "I do not."

"Too bad. I've been hoping to learn how Muggle alarm clocks worked, and as long as I was here--"

"Are you a student, then?" Severus thought he might as well gather information as long as he was apparently going to be conversed with whether he wanted it or not.

"Me? No. I'm dropping off my wife's brothers." He pointed. "There they are. Bloody irritated their mum made me come with, but she's home with Molly and the baby, and they're pranksters, a bit." He smiled, a friendly smile that didn't seem the least bit calculated. "You'll want to stay clear. It's never mean, but it's occasionally a bit, er, damaging. So. Trunk, then?" 

Severus sighed and allowed himself to be helped to the train by an overly-friendly man he'd only just met. He caught Mother's eye as he was steered away from potential troublemakers, and she nodded, so he climbed up the too-tall stairs into the coach and went looking for Sirius Black. He was awkward with other children, but he thought the two of them might have things to talk about.

**-::- 1976-77 -::-  
-::- one -::-**

It all began as an unscheduled experiment late one evening after Remus came in late and found Sirius still up, looking at his dirty pictures of Muggle birds in clothing designed to drive the mothers of teenaged boys spare. Just an experiment, nothing more, and they forgot it as soon as it was over.

Not really. They promised to, in the weird awkward moment when they peeled apart skin that had dried sticky together with hair pulling in tender spots, but they didn't forget it; they looked at each other, sidelong looks, wondering, in class and in the dormitory at night, even while they laughed a little too loud when James and Peter were nearby and at the lunch table, even while they carefully still clapped each other on the shoulder because that was what blokes did. Blokes touched each other with a shove or a nudge, and they laughed at rude jokes and talked about what they intend to do with that Ravenclaw bird if they got the chance. They didn't check the ticking second hand of the clock and consider where the other was and whether they might do it again and when there might be an appropriate time.

They just didn't. 

Even when it was brilliant. Remus knew this--even when they woke up in the night from dreams that might as well have been conjoined, the remembered taste of musky unwashed cock on their tongues, the cooling pooled come on their bellies, gasping and hearing the sound of harsh rough breathing in the bed on the other side of the curtain. Even then. He turned over and shoved his pillow into a new shape of lump.

Blokes _definitely_ didn't talk about it. Remus knew that both of them knew there was never an appropriate time--was never going to _be_ an appropriate time--for one teenaged boy to crawl into his friend's bed and rub against him until they both were sweating, pretending to mutter about that Ravenclaw bird as though the image of her in their minds' eyes was the thing, was enough to supersede the rasp of the hair of Sirius's thigh against the sensitive head of Remus's cock, to supersede the smell of him, almost there, sharp and hot and gripping at Remus's arse with one hand as he jerked his cock with the other and lost coherency in his words and spattered all over both of them.

And if the shining Muggle glow-in-the-dark hands of the alarm clock at half-two the next night and the next after that only reminded them of Remus half-falling off Sirius's bed and staggering back to bed and got them both hard again, they didn't discuss that either, and they didn't look at each other as they slowly shoved anxious hands down into their pyjamas and got themselves off.

It didn't mean anything, anyway. It was just a game. It wasn't fucking, and it wasn't real. It was in the middle of the night and it was cocks and it was hot, and it wasn't real.

It was never going to be real, and Remus knew it.

**-::- two -::-**

Playing lookout for your mate was only fun if he let you watch, and James didn't let Sirius watch a bloody thing; in fact, he threatened really fucking horrible consequences if Sirius so much as tried to catch a glimpse.

Which, given how good James was with a sodding stinging hex, and given Sirius liked his bollocks unstung, meant playing lookout was dead boring.

Sirius leaned back on the ugly side of the ugly steps and pretended to read a book because you can't be obvious, when you're the one watching for your mate's parents and completely horrid sister--honestly, that's one bird he thought he _would_ toss out of bed, and she wouldn't even _have_ to eat crackers, and it was hard to believe she could be related to Lily, but then, it only went to show, blood was never all.

It was hardly his fault he failed to see Snivellus sidling his way up until he was practically upon him; he was looking for _Muggles_ , in their dreadfully loud Muggle cars. 

And it was definitely not his fault Snivellus hexed him before he could even say a bloody word, which, look, this was a Muggle area. He couldn't just go tossing about hexes, now could he? He'd promised James not to cause a ruckus because then Lily would forbid him coming back and that'd mean no shagging for the whole rest of the summer and considering Sirius had to live with him because what did he have to go back to anyway, that was definitely not to be desired.

Which is why he didn't hex back. He jumped up and knocked Snivellus to the ground with his fists and told him to get away from here because didn't he know, Lily had someone better to do?

Snivellus sneered, his ugly mouth shaping into an ugly snarl, and asked what Sirius was doing there, but didn't let him answer; he guessed an instant after the question left his mouth, and he was right, and then he guessed Sirius wasn't man enough to sneak a peek.

Stinging hex or no, there was no way to let that pass. Sirius brought his wand up between them and muttered a silencing charm that no Muggle could see and there was no reason to think they could hear, and dragged Snivellus up and to the window with him.

And it was... Sirius had seen people fuck before. In a magazine, and on a Muggle film a couple of times, and there was the thing he didn't do with Remus hardly ever (but sometimes) which wasn't the same at all, but this. This was James, his naked arse squeezing and pushing and sweat dripping down his nose, and this was Lily with her hair all tangled making abstract shapes on the pillow and her legs spread wide, and they were making wet slick sounds and her tits were bouncing up toward her chin with every grunting push. Sirius turned and slid down the wall, panting, startled an instant later when Snape did the same. 

They looked at each other, then looked away, then stared straight ahead for a minute. The grunting went on, punctuated by the whack of the varnished wooden bed frame into the plaster wall, faster and harder and louder, and Sirius closed his eyes and felt his cock throb in time to James spilling into Lily's wet cunt.

He swallowed hard and turned to Snape because there was _no way_ to not say something, but Snape was still staring straight ahead, his body rigid and tense, and Sirius couldn’t help it. He got up and dragged Snape behind the house and pinned him against the wall, rubbing against him hard. Snivellus protested for a moment, but Sirius glared and said it was his fucking fault for making him look, and they could at least get something out of it. He rubbed harder, pushing the front of his trousers against the solid ridge of hipbone. 

He was silently triumphant when Snivellus came first, shuddering under him, biting his lip.

**-::- three -::-**

Severus hadn't originally intended to take this class, but he'd overheard Black going on about it on the train, and since the summer, any opportunity to watch him was an opportunity he would take. After a hasty trip to see the Headmaster about his accidental failure to indicate his interest before the start of term, he'd sent away for an appropriate textbook, which had been entirely worth the trouble already, and they were only a few weeks in. The furious glare every time he looked was intoxicating; he had power here, power to tell, power to show, even, because his Legilimency was improving. He'd never had a great deal of power, before.

He looked up from his book and waited. It wouldn’t take long, and then Black would look back--there it was. Severus waited for the immediate flare of rage, and then winked. Slowly. As though this were flirtation. 

He watched the spark grow into flame, and wondered what sort of inferno it would take to get Black to actually attack in class. The aftermath would, no doubt, be painful, but they had history, and he'd promised the Headmaster not to attempt retribution himself. He'd never promised not to wink, or not to take advantage of such an unexpected scenario.

Lupin looked up, saw the fury, and glanced toward him, anxious, then said something, too quiet to hear, to Black, and Black looked away.

Another time, then.

Severus went back to casual consideration of the Pflugenberg equation, glancing up periodically to find Lupin watching him.

Interesting.

He finished out the lesson and put his book carefully into his bag, taking time he ordinarily might have spent hurrying away to the library in order to linger. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, and half-expected that Black would linger too, but in fact, he didn't; within seconds of the end of the lecture, he was alone, instead, with Lupin.

Who was also, clearly, lingering.

Severus hadn't especially wanted to speak to Lupin, or at least, he hadn't thought he did, and made to brush past him, but Lupin's hand shot out grasped his upper arm tightly, squeezing hard enough that Severus thought that had he not endured any number of similar pinnings by his father, he might have cried out.

Lupin said nothing for a long moment, until Severus lifted his chin and opened his mouth to coolly enquire as to Lupin's motives--it would have been coolly, he told himself, though he never got the chance to prove it. Lupin snarled at him, something about Black having paid for his transgressions and didn't need further provocation.

Well yes, Severus _knew_ that. But Lupin knew he knew it, so what was his point? His eyes narrowed, but now he said nothing deliberately. Waiting would draw out the words if Lupin had something to say. Sure enough, a moment later, Lupin let him go, shoving him stumbling back until his arse hit the edge of the table, and then, there it was. Lupin asked him what he wanted.

Severus didn't know what he wanted, really; there was no good way to put into words that he wanted to be bloody well left alone and that he wanted friends and that he wanted his hair to look careless like Potter's and that everything was unfair. Everything _was_ unfair, of course, but also, it wasn't, and the teenaged psyche and clever mind hadn't yet worked out how to come to any sort of accord on the issue, but whingeing only made him greasy and pathetic _and whingeing_ , so he didn't say that. In a flash, he came back to the moment at home, to the expression on Black's face, triumph and familiarity, and he smiled, showing all his uneven teeth. 

And told Lupin what he wanted, in exchange for not pushing Black.

God, Gryffindors were insane, but then, it was difficult to find reason to object to this truth when he stood in the Prefects' bath when Lupin should have been in Potions, cock buried deep in Lupin's choking throat, fingers knotted in his hair.

Insane, but apparently depraved; Severus didn't know a single one of his housemates that would risk position for pleasure, and evidently virtually _all_ the Gryffindors did, routinely, in exchange for favors or pleasures or for all he knew, an extra serving of pudding.

He pulled back at the last moment, not at all clear until he did it what he meant to do, and wrapped his long fingers around his cock to stroke, spurting stripes on Lupin's tongue and nose, in stark white contrast to he raised red scars.

It was almost beautiful, if a werewolf could ever be. 

Severus fastened his trousers and reiterated his terms, then went off to the library at a leisurely pace. He had work to do, and he could come back to this later.

**-::- 1994-95 -::-  
-::- one -::-**

It didn't even feel like a choice. It'd been twelve years. No, twelve years, eight months, four days, actually, since everything had fallen apart, and here it was once again together, pieces fitting into notches and grooves as though they were meant for this.

They _were_ meant for this. There was no other explanation because after half a dozen years in which nothing they did was real (it wasn't, it wasn't, because they'd never spoken of it--had they?--and never said anything to James--probably--and never seen each other come in the daylight--he hoped) and a whole dozen in which nothing that was important was real, or perhaps it was the other way about, here they were. One of them was half-mad, the other furious with self-loathing, and yet, at the most basic level, everything was as though it had never stopped.

Sirius lifted his head and looked down at Remus in the light of the rising sun. They were both naked, couldn’t be helped on a transformation back from wolf and dog and they'd woken up this way many times, with James and without, but now they were naked and adult, aware of themselves in a way they hadn't been, when they were fourteen, aware of their own vulnerability: he saw it in Remus's face. He didn't know what to say.

There was nothing to say.

There was no choice.

It was like riding a broom: kick your leg over and command _up_ and let the thing take you away.

He slid his arm down, his too-thin arm with the odd crushed-blueberry bruises from one too many falls and not enough good beds to sleep in, and that looked… as though it belonged to a man in prison. It passed over too-thin ribs that had always been thus, too thin and too strange because deforming the bones every month, every moon, that took a toll, and Remus wasn't odd-looking, exactly, but if you knew these bones, you could tell, and if you'd never had daylight, you'd only had touch. He was too thin, was all there was to it. Too thin, and too thin. They fit. Sirius let the muscle of his forearm rest in the shallow groove between rib bones, letting his wrist hang down so his fingers grazed the certainly-sore muscles of Remus's arm, and sighed. It was real. He ignored his own cock, rock hard for the first time in longer than he cared to count, and pulled his elbow back, grazing Remus's soft prick with the outside of his arm and curling his hand around it.

He liked waking up this way. He liked it for himself, the way he felt awake and asleep and hard and soft and waiting, but he liked it, too, for Remus, who was stirring now, grimacing even as he moaned.

Sirius bent to his work, drawing gasps and sighs and shuddering whimpers from Remus's mouth in the full daylight of the forest, alone in a grove of silent trees.

In the daylight, Remus came with his front teeth digging hard into his lower lip, with a hand clenching at the nape of Sirius's neck, with his body arching off the grassy earth.

Seeing this in the light was worth the trouble of having to find Buckbeak again to make clean his getaway. This, he thought, was real, a real and perfect happy memory, and Azkaban could just go fuck itself before he'd let it get taken away again.

**-::- two -::-**

It wasn't terribly late, but the others had been in bed for quite some time and Remus's sharp ears heard a voice, and a quick even snicksnicksnick. He rose quietly and went to the door of the great Black library, then followed the sound down to the kitchen.

He was relatively sure what he'd find before he rounded the banister so he could see, but he got his wand out, never the less. Even had he not known Alastor--the real Alastor, still recovering from his ordeal--for well over a decade, he was good with Defense; he'd been a good teacher, damn it. Being unprepared was, therefore, not something he accepted in himself or others.

His suspicions proved correct. Severus stood at the high table, knife clicking precisely down onto the wooden cutting board, long fingers gathering and moving the products of his work into tidy colorful mounds. Remus relaxed his grip and slid his wand into his pocket, and casually asked, as though it were not half past eleven at night on a warm July Thursday, what Severus might be doing.

Severus didn't bother to look up, merely pointing to the heating pot over the flame.

"Need help?"

"I have never needed your help, Lupin."

It had been worth asking just to hear the disdain. "Yes, Severus; you don't need for anything, do you? Still, perhaps you _want_ my help." Remus waited a beat. "Or, there could be a wager."

"What, to see how _fast_ you get on your knees for me? You've always been hungry for it."

"It works well for both of us, I'd say. And I thought, rather, to see whether you still can adequately dice the onions whilst you come."

"You cannot possibly doubt," Severus began, but Remus pursed his lips, and knelt, squeezing his way between the table and Severus's thighs.

"Your way would have been a lousy bet, too," he said.

Severus nodded and went back to slicing: carrots, now, to slide next to the peppers and before the mushrooms. Remus concentrated on opening the buttons of his robe, then the buttons of his trousers. The scent came at him in a mouthwatering rush as he reached bare skin and he looked up. "Steady, there?"

"Get on with it." The sounds of the knife slowed slightly as Remus drew out the hardening cock and eagerly took it in his mouth, and then went uneven entirely as he sucked. 

He grinned around the mouthful; there had been a time Severus would have exploded of need before allowing his physical response to show in any way he didn't dictate. "Good?" he asked, smirking, before going back to slurping, saliva running down his chin as he gripped Severus's hip with one hand and shoved the other down the front of his own trousers and pants.

"Don't flatter yourself. The vegetables are of uneven shape and size."

"Hmm." Remus didn't bother to make any answer but a noncommittal hum; the feel of hard smooth soft flesh on his tongue, the smell wrapping around him, the heat of Severus's belly against his nose and forehead were all intoxicating, and as the chopping sounds returned to an even rhythm--though Severus's legs shook--he stroked himself firmly and ignored the cold tile under his knees and the creaking groans of the old house.

"I suppose you'll want some?"

"Hmm?"

"Soup. If I'm to make enough for two, I shall need another potato."

Remus chuckled and sucked harder, faster, moving his hand and his mouth in time.

"But then, I'm giving you what you want now, so perhaps you've no need of soup."

Remus pulled back enough to offer a rude suggestion, then sat back on his heels and opened his flies, stroking himself harder there on the floor at Severus's feet. He ignored Severus's wet cock bobbing before him and looked up. "I can't very well go on for no reward, can I?"

"It's its own reward. You've always liked sucking my cock more than you said. In fact, I quite doubt your original willingness was anything to do with your mongrel friend."

"I like coming, too. I can leave you to your soup, though. I've got the taste of it now." Remus licked his lips.

"Not as much as you'd like."

"I rarely get as much as I'd _like_ , of anything. I'll make do." Remus was on the edge now, glaring up to meet Severus's gaze, fist pumping furiously.

"And yet, you keep coming back." Severus shrugged. "As well for you I'm a generous man." He kept his eyes on Remus, but set his knife aside and carefully dried both hands on the towel to one side, then wrapped his hand around his cock, too, jerking in time with Remus. He sneered as he looked down, but stepped too close for Remus to stand as well, and then, quickly, he was coming, semen splashing on Remus's nose and lips and chin.

Remus groaned and licked his lips, holding back a fierce smile. He loved sucking Severus's cock, but if anything, those times he could get Severus to participate, he liked this more. His own orgasm was intense, come spilling over his fingers onto Severus's shoes and cuffs and splashing on the floor, and he grunted, restraining the need to call out. He kept rubbing until his cock went soft and sensitive, dropping to his knees and bracing his other hand on the floor as the last aftershocks ran through his body. He heard rustling as Severus shook off a stray drop of fluid, and felt it hit the back of his head and shuddered again, then pushed himself upright and buttoned his trousers. "Generous to a fault, yes," he said. It was easy, with his wand, to clean up his face and hair, and then he sat, sprawled casually as though for a friendly chat, at the table. "So yes, I'd love some soup."

"Get out. This arrangement was never congenial."

"Of course. However, you have soup, and I'm hungry. Besides. If I go back upstairs, I might not be quiet enough. I'm sure you'd like Sirius's company even less."

"I shall take my chances."

Remus shrugged and stood to go back upstairs. "Next time I'll make you feed me first."

"Next time, I shall see to my own masturbation and leave you out of the equation entirely."

Remus chuckled and went up the stairs. He didn't especially try to be quiet.

**-::- three -::-**

Severus wasn't, on this day, particularly vigilant.

Not any more than usual, anyway; not for him. This wasn't to say he was unaware of his surroundings. Years--decades, really--of practice had left him all but unable to drop all the habits of deliberate awareness, so compared to, say, Potter, he was certainly alert to possibilities. But he was tired, and it was too bloody hot outside, and he'd never been fond of July.

This was why it took him nearly a minute to work out who was following him, and why, when he did, it took a conscious act of will not to stop right there in the middle of the street and curse at the stupidity. He sped his steps and continued on to the corner, then turned, and turned immediately again behind the old Watkins place. It had been abandoned the better part of a decade, so if he was going to have a confrontation with Sirius Sodding Black, here was as good a place as any. He pressed back flat against the peeling paint and waited.

Not twenty seconds later, the idiot came around the corner, loping absurdly along, nose to the ground, tongue lolling when he looked up.

Honestly. 

"Black." Severus spoke only loudly enough to be heard, which, given the canine nature of the audience, was not very loudly at all.

The dog stopped short, one front paw off the ground, and _wagged its tail_. 

Severus rolled his eyes. "That will make you no headway with me. Your assignment is clear. You are out in public. And, much as I'd cry no tears in the event of your untimely demise, we do, for the moment, need the location you so generously provide. Go home."

The dog smirked at him.

Not really. Dogs didn't possess the facial musculature, nor, in actual dogs, the emotional wherewithal, to smirk. However, they did snarl, and this one raised its lip just so, representative of a smirk, and sat down. Sat down, right there in the Watkins' front garden.

Severus rolled his eyes. "Yes, well. Don't then. Do see you will the house appropriately before you die." He turned away, intending to step further into the alley and Apparate from there.

"I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction."

Severus stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Ah, I see you've come to your senses. Might as well be an obvious target, as long as you're here? Get on with it, then. I expect you could find at least six people staring at a wanted poster somewhere in town." He made a shooing motion with his hand.

"No one here, though, is there, Snape?"

"I could immobilize you and owl the Ministry…" Severus's lips curved into a grin. "It would be like a game, seeing who got the report first? What if it were Fudge?"

Black shook his head. "But you won't."

"Overconfidence has always been your sin."

"And you've always had an unnatural attraction to poking your abnormally large--"

"Yes, I believe we've had this conversation before. Do what you will." Severus turned away again, then stopped short once more as the dog ran around in front of him and half-jumped, raising its big front paws off the ground, tail wagging once more. "I didn't mean this. And I will not throw a stick for you."

The dog yipped and squirmed, entire back end waving side to side, then lifted up on its hind legs, front paws landing on Severus's shoulders as the wet pink tongue slathered dog spit on his chin and ear.

"I _will_ hex you."

The dog panted at him, then licked again.

Bugger.

Severus dropped his parcels, hoping the fragile lacewing frames wouldn’t be too damaged, and drew his wand, holding it between them pointing up at Black's chin.

Black snorted and sneezed, then shook his head, upper lip flapping. He looked around, and transformed again. "Hex an unarmed man, will you?"

"The status of your wand isn't my concern, and you're the one that came here of your own free will." Severus jammed the wand higher into the flesh under Black's jaw. "Get _off_ me."

Black grinned and bent to scoop up Severus's packages, then backed away, holding out his hands, probably crushing the lacewings under his thumb. "What, no invitation for tea? This is how you would treat a shut-in?" He kept moving back, up the Watkins' back steps and onto the porch.

Severus started up the steps, wand at the ready. "For the last time, you are shut in for your own bloody good."

"I'm sure you'll be astonished to learn I'm _aware_ of that, but you'd leave too, shut in every day with an insane house-elf and my bloody mother."

"Your mother at least had principles. You, on the other hand, are too lazy to be of use and too weak to do as you are told. And too well-known to stand trading insults on a porch in public."

Black lifted his chin. "Then in we go." He opened the door behind him and went into the abandoned home, then reopened the door for a moment to poke his head out. "If you want your bits and bobs, here…"

Severus stormed the rest of the way up the steps and slammed the door back against the wall. "Black!"

Black was standing in the middle of the room, looking around at the holes in the plaster and stains on the carpet. His eyes fell on the cloth-covered furniture, and he snorted. "Familiar, isn't it? Me already inside and you bursting in, wand out, furious…"

"Excellent. This time, there's no one to stop me."

Black laughed again, which was bloody disconcerting; no one should find threats of imminent death entertaining, and surely he knew very well that Severus _could_ do it. Still, it gave him pause. What the hell was funny? Perhaps Black was as insane as some of the others had speculated. It certainly ran in the family.

"D'you know what I miss?" Black stepped closer.

"I'm sure I don't care."

"I miss everything. Even being a bloody _lookout_ was interesting, compared to now."

Severus lifted a brow, remembering a time nearly twenty years past. "As I recall, you were a terrible lookout, too. No attention, no focus…"

"At least I wasn't there to drool over someone who'd never look at me twice."

"At least _I_ didn't respond to the situation by jumping someone I hate."

"You came first."

"Hardly relevant. You had your hand on my cock. I certainly wasn't touching yours."

"Ah, so now it would be different?"

"Now I wouldn’t be in the situation," Severus said. He leaned forward without warning and snatched back his things out of Black's hand. "So the question is irrelevant."

"Not up for a challenge?"

"Not 'up' for _you_ , more like."

"You can't be getting any anywhere else." Black took one more step, practically nose-to-nose with Severus. "And you know you liked it."

"Of course I _liked_ it, in the sense I was seventeen years old and coming because someone was touching my cock. I've more to compare it to, now."

"I'd still win."

"After twelve years in Azkaban--actually, I'm surprised you remember in the first place; making me come was surely a high point for you--and two in hiding, you can't have been garnering expertise. You're hardly in high demand. Also, get off me." This had gone far enough.

Black smirked--again--and shoved a hand between the buttons of Severus's robe, seeking blindly for his waistband. "What's the stake?"

"There is no stake. We are _not_ doing this."

"No?" Black found Severus's waistband and started working his hand down under layers as Severus wondered why the hell he was still here.

"No."

He already knew he'd lost, but when Black's hand closed around his swelling cock, he cursed anyway.

**-::- 1995-96 -::-  
-::- one -::-**

"You should never have gone out."

Sirius whirled. "Why the hell not? I'm doing nothing here--less than useless." His eyes bore circles beneath, and Remus sighed; Sirius hadn't slept well, as far as he could tell, since some time in the summer of 1981, but now he was more than fatigued. He was worried. He was angry. He was frustrated. And the set of his brow said, too, that he was concerned as to how Remus had known.

"Because," Remus said, tone the patient one he'd used not so long ago to teach children about Boggarts, "you're a liability, captured, and you're providing security, here, and you've been asked to stay in. And I can smell the scent on you." He let Sirius assume the scent was the out-of-doors; there was little point mentioning the scents of sex and sweat and rage.

"Ah, well. Padfoot, though. They don't know." His pose relaxed fractionally, and Remus made a note of it. He'd been worried Remus had heard _from_ someone, and that was odd.

"They will, if you go out and transform with the wrong person in a place to see it."

"I won't."

"You might. You've never been…" Remus paused. _You've never been reliable_ wasn't really true, though it was what he wanted to say. "You've never been good at reining in your impulses, when the reward is right there."

"I'm not without self-control!"

"Which is why you go out for a fuck?"

Sirius blanched. "What?"

Remus sighed. "You can't have forgotten what it means that I am what I am, Pads. I smell the come on you." _Yours, and Severus's_. He didn't say that part.

Sirius, either to his credit or because he was more a Slytherin at heart than Remus had ever thought, recovered quickly. "So I wank. You would too, mewed up like this. I wank a _lot_."

Remus pursed his lips. "Outside? Because that rather implies transformation. And yes, I know, Padfoot can hump a leg or some such, but that's different, and that's not what's going on."

"Not outside, no." Sirius grinned, a wide, wicked smirk, and added, "want a demonstration? You could keep me inside, you know, if I were busy…"

Remus pinned him with a look, uncertain as to how to respond. The notion of fucking Sirius now, with the scent of Severus on him, should have been nauseating. He should have been furious. Instead, he was getting hard, and part of him, possibly the part that thought it was sometimes a wolf, was saying into his ear that he ought to reclaim his lover.

Lover, of course, wasn't quite the word. His fucking partner. Not that they usually fucked; there was never time, these days, for more than a hurried rush of hands and lips, in a closet or in the upstairs bath or once in the pantry before Moody arrived.

Finally, he pressed his lips together and nodded, once. "That's what you want, then? That's what it takes? You need someone to fuck you into submission _here_ and make you stay, then fine. Turn around."

Sirius stared for a minute, then rasped, throat apparently dry, "Upstairs. If you want my arse, I want a proper bed for it."

"Lead on." Remus shoved Sirius up the stairs ahead of him, cock throbbing in his trousers. 

It was a long climb to the fourth story, and with each shift of his legs, each riser they stepped in, the cloth of his pants rubbed him, made him harder. By the time they got the bedroom Sirius had abandoned as a teenager, the bedroom which was still plastered in Muggle posters and littered with dishes and dirty laundry, Remus was both fully aroused and inexplicably furious. He glanced around quickly and snatched up a hairbrush from the top of the dresser, brandishing it. "If I'm to discipline you, I suppose I ought to do it right." He was teasing, he thought, but he gripped the brush tight, and it felt as though he wanted to use it.

Sirius's eyes widened, and he nearly tripped as he hurried to the bed, dropping his ragged trousers down as he walked. "I've been very bad, haven't I?" He didn't bother with modesty or foreplay, but instead climbed upon the bed with his knees still trapped in the waistband of his trousers, and fell forward on his elbows.

"Sirius."

"No, I want it. I want you to… I've been a bad, bad dog." The grin as he looked over his shoulder was vulnerable and eager and heated, and Remus felt the subvocal growl beneath it.

"Yes. Yes, you have." Remus lifted the brush and bought it down hard on Sirius's arse, then dropped it, growling back, and cast a lubrication charm that barely was completed before he was driving forward, making Sirius wince and whimper and push back against him, balancing on one hand as he jerked off with the other with rapid harsh yanks.

Severus hadn't done this. He hadn't done this.

Remus wasn't sure why that didn't make him feel any better, but after he came, after Sirius grunted and spilled onto his filthy sheets--God, he had a bloody house-elf; there was no excuse--he panted, "You stay home," and Sirius agreed. Remus felt, at least for a moment, triumphant.

**-::- two -::-**

Sirius had known before he ever caught an unintended glimpse that the tattoo was there and active again. He'd felt it, with the senses that belonged to the part of him that was a dog, and it had send a little thrill through him to taunt and play with that kind of darkness once again. He'd missed it, he supposed, the sense of dark that was omnipresent in the house itself and had been overwhelming in every one of his days for twelve years but which had always, in his boyhood, been a part of the _people_ who surrounded him.

He'd fled it, at eleven. He'd fled it again at sixteen. He'd avoided and rejected and left it, but the sense of home it brought him was undeniable. It was home the way this bloody trap of a house was not.

He wasn't sure whether he had an opinion as to the absence of shame he felt about how comfortable Snape's red cock made him, but ever since that afternoon, he'd been even more restless, the reasons layered now: the need to act that had been itching at his skin and gripping him by the throat for weeks now painted over with a crazy-making drive to touch that darkness some more. And now, he was restless. And now, all of this was real, was something they really did, was not all in his head and not all in his house.

Sometimes he could get what he needed with Remus, with the tinges of black--he chuckled as he always did when the name, Black, came into any sort of range of homosexual meanderings with a half-blood and a Gryffindor, then went back to his former train of thought. The blackness that the werewolf had always brought Remus, stronger lately, angrier, was appealing, and if Sirius were honest with himself, probably it always had been, even when he'd never recognized anything but the golden tones; however, even that wasn't enough. Not since he'd dragged an angry orgasm from Snape in a house that looked a hell of a lot like the Shrieking Shack had a year and some prior. Not since he'd pushed him back and found him hard and forced him to come. Not, and here the blank spaces in his memory betrayed him, but he was almost sure, not since he'd done the same on a warm day in 1977 in the side garden between Snape's house and Lily's. He'd certainly come harder, and more often, in the last weeks than he had in years, not that his time in Azkaban counted for much there.

He walked the stairs, up to his room to pick up and stroke the hairbrush Remus had used that day, when he'd come home with Snape's come on his fingers and an afternoon of freedom on his mind. He carried it with him, down a flight to the room in which Buckbeak was snorting and adjusting his feathers, down another to the corridor where his mother had sent them to play when they were small, past the room where Remus was sleeping off the post-transformation fuck, and down one more to the sitting room, where he set it on the mantel. It didn't belong there, certainly, by conventional rules, but belonging and placement were topics on which Sirius found convention lacking.

He went on down to the kitchen, pacing for another half hour before he sat at the table, suddenly exhausted, his head in his hands, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

When Snape came in, late, some time after the clock had struck one, Sirius was waiting in the dark, every candle snuffed, every curtain drawn. He got up when the door creaked and walked, silently in the way someone who knows a house better than he knows his own wardrobe, to the sitting room, avoiding the boards that creaked and avoiding the places where the light of the all-but-full moon shone through the cracks.

" _Lumos_!" Snape's wand was pointed away from where Sirius was pressed against the wall, and the bright light was shadowed by his body. Sirius grinned, still silent, and swiftly stepped forward, bringing his hand down on Severus's wand arm to knock the light away. "Black!"

"Sh. Everyone's asleep."

"Everyone but you." The wand remained lit on the floor, and the glow played around the room, glinting off the bristles of the hairbrush. Sirius shuddered.

"Everyone but me. What, aren't you happy to see me?" Sirius rubbed his nose in the oily dirty strands of Snape's hair as he ran both hands down his belly, trapping his arms against his body and biting hard at the junction of his neck and shoulder.

"No."

"Think you are." He slid his hands down further, gripping Severus's cock though layers of clothing. "See?"

"Get off me."

"You mean, 'get me off,' don't you? You say it every time. You tell me to get off you, and then you come."

"No. I mean, get off me. You smell of fresh Lupin, and I'm not an idiot."

Sirius let go and backed away. "What if I do, and, that's debatable."

"Hardly."

"You spend your days harassing children and your evenings skulking about, flashing your tattoo and parading about with masked men."

"I fail to see what that has to do with my intelligence, although I would suggest you're countering your awn argument quite effectively. That I do what I do is a matter of skill, timing, and careful attention to detail. I believe we've been over this before." Snape turned around and stepped toward him. "And as you smell of Lupin, it's clear you've no need of _me_."

Sirius shook his head. "You're one to talk. I smell you on him, sometimes, and him on you. You'd no compunction about coming here at this hour, for one or the other of us, and I doubt you much cared which."

"Yes, but the difference is, I'm willing to use you both. I'm not willing to be used."

"Ah, so you'll refuse to fuck him now, too, now that you know he's just as much a slave to his prick as anyone, and so you think we all should stop and go back to wanking, like desperate teenagers? Fuck you."

"Is that an offer? You're upping the ante?"

Sirius unfastened the top button of his dirty trousers. "Are you?"

Severus spun him around faster than he's expected, and Sirius hit the wall with a _whump_ that knocked the air from his lungs, and then his trousers were coming down and strong fingers with sharp nails were shoving into him hard. "He fucked you, earlier."

Sirius was still gasping, and nodded once, sharply.

"And now you need something worthwhile." The fingers moved away and with no hesitation, no charm, no gentleness at all, Snape was shoving into him. 

Sirius pressed the side of his face against the wall and watched the sleeve on Snape's upraised left arm slide down, and down, his forearm, until the tattoo showed clearly, before he took his cock in his hand.

**-::- three -::-**

"How predictable." Severus twisted his face into a sneer as he closed the door.

"Please. Moon's tomorrow, and it helps, which I believe we've previously discussed." Lupin looked up easily from the overlarge slice of chocolate cake and waved with his fork toward him. "Lock that."

"I'm not an idiot; magical locking is, what, a third-year charm? Though this one is a bit more advanced, thank you."

"No, I meant the bar. Magical locks are quite nice, but I'm also fond of a good bar that will repel the physical in case of a surprise."

"Paranoid, Lupin?"

The grin was deceptively friendly. "I don't think I'm the chief claimant, here, Severus, but I will say that thirty or so years of locking myself into confined spaces every twenty-nine days and a bit has left me with a rather healthy appreciation of the value of a good solid oaken bar. Also, at some point it really might make sense, were you to drop the pretense we are barely acquaintances and undertake the radical practice of calling me by my given name. After all, I stopped calling you Snivellus decades ago."

Severus ignored the last bit entirely, and shrugged. "Yes, well, paranoia suits me, and I don't suppose barring the door could hurt." He dropped the thick wooden bolt into its deep metal slot and crossed the room. 

"Unless my goal is to prevent you leaving," Lupin said. "I'm given to understand some of my kind are quite taken with making unwelcome advances."

Severus quashed the tiny and momentary panic that still, after all these years, rushed through him at the thought of a weekend with a changed werewolf, and schooled his face to an expression of casual disinterest. "What, so you could tie me to the bed and spend the afternoon with my cock in your mouth? No need for anything so involved; you're free to suck me off at any point during this discussion. Except whilst you impart information, that is, and assuming you're competent to _listen_ while you work."

Lupin chuckled. "I'm glad to know it. Also, Albus sends his love."

Severus snorted. "If there are floating lavender hearts that accompany this message, please refrain from passing them along. Or pink; I'm quite deathly sick of pink."

"Getting worse, is she?"

"You've no idea. There are kittens. I'm surprised she hasn't re-outfitted my classroom with a quilted cozy for every cauldron. In any case, I don't suppose there's a point to this meeting, other than that there's a bed in the room?"

"That's quite an image. Perhaps there could be a sweet little satin and lace apron for the instructor, with a pocket for every tool? And no, the bed is incidental, though I do think Aberforth is quite curious as to our use of the room. Hardly anyone lets rooms from him."

"Given the goats, this is hardly a revelation. Also, don't push me."

"Yes, yes. In any case, I've secured the room against his overhearing for any number of reasons, not least the one about your cock and my mouth."

"Hungry, are we?"

Lupin had the temerity to offer a toothy grin and point at one canine. "Big teeth I have."

"Black not putting out enough for you?"

That was slightly more satisfying; Lupin paused and swallowed before responding slowly, "I don't entirely consider our actions in that light, but then, it's no surprise you do."

"But you know, surely, it's not some destined love you share, or you wouldn’t both--"

"I don't take that as given, but it doesn't matter. If you're hoping to shock me, you haven't, and if you intend to alienate me, I'm not sure why you'd want to do so before you come."

"Perhaps I've had enough of lies and misdirection."

Lupin set down his fork next to the glass plate still smudged with crumbs and ganache, and pushed back his chair. "You, Severus? Enough misdirection? Surely you cannot be serious." He waited a beat. "No cheap pun, then? Too bad. Sirius, I fuck. You, I just blow." He unbuckled his belt and opened the flies of his trousers, then cocked an eyebrow. 

Severus shook his head. "Quite the whore, that one."

"Not really. Just bored and desperate. Like others that bounce from hole to hole, I imagine." Lupin's voice had an edge to it, but Severus refrained from pursuing the thought; to ask after his emotions would imply that he cared, and that was rather more of a stretch than he liked. He unfastened his robe and gestured toward the bed.

"Not keeping him entertained, are we?" He followed along and sat down, robe open wide, as Lupin sank down to his knees at Severus's feet.

"Well. _We_ apparently are, unless you know something I don't."

"I know _hundreds_ of things you don't, Lupin."

"In specific areas, I imagine that's true." Lupin leaned in, not bothering with anything remotely subtle, and took Severus' hardening cock into his mouth.

"For instance, I know that you're jealous of both of us, and yet, it doesn't cause you to stop," Severus mused, enjoying the sudden tension in Lupin's jaw. Commenting now wasn't about emotion or caring; it was about power, and Severus smiled. "Is that the best you can do? I thought you _wanted_ to suck my cock."

Lupin pulled away. "Not that badly, actually. I'm reasonably certain I've had sex more recently than you, unless you're fucking Filch, which I quite doubt, given that by all reports he'd immediately report the encounter to Umbridge herself."

"Perhaps I'm fucking Hagrid."

"Unlikely. Now, did you want me to put my mouth to better use than listing the staff of Hogwarts one by bloody one?"

Severus smirked. "Yes; I want you to tell me what Albus has going on, if you even have anything to report and aren't just here for a desperate sad opportunity to come on my shoes." He paused. "You know, we _could_ complete our legitimate business whilst fucking, if neither of our mouths were engaged."

"You're offering your arse, then?"

"Hardly."

"Then I suppose we'll have to improvise." Without any additional warning, Lupin rose up more quickly than Severus's rational mind thought he ought to be able to, and to his irritation, he flinched slightly before recovering and allowing himself to be pushed over backward and repositioned on the sagging mattress. Lupin's cock brushed against his, and he wondered how, exactly, he'd managed to get so distracted as to not realize Lupin had shoved his trousers down over his arse. The warm soft slide of skin, his wet, Lupin's dry but for the sundry drop of smeared fluid, wasn't inherently better than having Lupin on his knees, but he welcomed it. He shuddered sharply and set aside the weird sense of enjoying being pinned, enjoying being at, for all intents and purposes, the mercy of a werewolf coming up on the full moon, and dug the tips of his fingers into Lupin's arse cheeks, pulling them more snugly together as they rocked fiercely, more like a furious restricted battle than an easy uncomplicated fuck. 

The bed, like everything in this room, was uneven, and one post knocked against the wall, hard, then softer, then hard again, and the table wobbled from the referred energy of their movement; the plate slid and the fork tumbled to the floor, sending great chocolatey crumbs flying. One of them stuck to Severus's nose and in the moment it took him to reflexively blink as it came toward his eyes, Lupin was upon him, plucking up the morsel with his lips and licking--licking!--Severus's nose, then his face, licking him as though bathing him.

Severus barely made it through that thought before he was coming, shooting hot spurts out between them as his wet nose and cheeks cooled. Lupin lifted his head away as he came as well, arching his back and baring his teeth.

Severus shuddered again and wondered how best to quickly trade information and bring an end to this meeting. He wasn't sure he could stand to do that again, but didn't think, given the opportunity, he could resist trying.

**-::- four -::-**

"You fucking, lying, nasty, fucking, unsympathetic--"

"Unsympathetic?" Severus made a rude sound with his mouth, and Remus clenched his fists to control the surge of rage. "Un _sympathetic_? Do they teach Gryffindors _nothing_? You come flying into my bloody office, which, by the way, you imbecile, I have not yet had the opportunity to ascertain is free of whatever observational artefacts Dolores Umbridge may have left behind, full of fury and horror at the unjust ways of the world, and in hurling your invective at me for being convenient, you come up with _unsympathetic_?" He sneered, and Remus's stomach turned over. "Then I shall assume you are familiar with the word's component parts, pronounce you merely _pathetic_ , and leave it at that." He turned away and crossed to the window, stepping up onto the cushion of his reading chair and feeling manually across the top of the frame, clearly not the least bit concerned that Remus intended him physical harm.

Remus took several noisy breaths through his nose, trying with little success to stem the pounding waves of frustration and hurt that had been both fed and soothed by Severus's words and wondering whether the lack of concern was justified. 

At length, he realized he smelled something. After a moment, he realized it was tea. He looked around and spotted the tea service on the side table: the teapot steaming, the two cups waiting ready. Between the cups was a plate of tiny chocolate cakes. He took one more breath in. "You were expecting someone, I suppose?"

"You, actually." Severus stepped off his reading chair and then clambered up onto the table he usually used for marking essays.

Remus blinked. "Me?"

"Potter's fury at me led me to expect that you, among others, would direct your grief my way." He pointed at the pair of seats next to the tea. "Sit."

"And you thought you'd make it up to me, the death of my last fucking friend, with a cup of tea and a handful of fairy cakes? Fuck."

"For one thing, you have another _fucking_ friend, of a sort, and I think we never did settle the question of whether you have more than one. And no, I did not. However, whether you believe me or not, I did try, and." Severus paused and held up a small object, no larger than a button, then drew his wand, tossed it into the air, and vaporized it. "I knew she'd leave something I wouldn’t find magically. Bitch." He dropped lightly off the table and got himself a cup of tea. 

"And what?" Remus was sidetracked now, despite that his heart was still racing and his chest still felt sore.

Severus pursed his lips. "And there is this. I won't deny that the loss of Black is, for me, not a great one. I suppose I'm sorry in the abstract, as I am and will be every time. But, Lupin, there are two things. First, this time, it was no innocent."

"He paid for--"

"Oh, do shut up. I'm not suggesting I was hoping for this outcome. And second, make no mistake. I expect to lose those as dear to me as he somehow was to you. Probably more than once." He held up his teacup and then looked away. "I don't honor _him_ , precisely, but I do honor those who fall in the fight." His lips twisted into an amused sneer. "And the bitch made a rule against keeping whisky in staff quarters. Unlike Minerva and that scotch she keeps as some sort of nationalist statement, I couldn’t afford the fallout if she caught me."

Remus looked again at the cooling tea, and sat down opposite Severus, taking a breath and trying to still the post-adrenaline shaking of his hands. When he thought he could do it without spilling, he poured his cup and took a sip, then sighed and shook his head. "I told Harry not to hold you accountable, that you'd likely done what you could. I suppose I ought to follow the same advice. But you're still an unsympathetic bastard."

"You think?" Severus couldn’t contain the sarcastic tone.

"Point."

They sat quietly for a few minutes before Harry's slightly-deranged house-elf appeared. It popped into view, started to say something, gaped at them for a moment, and popped back out, and Remus frowned. "What was--"

"I believe Albus has asked him to see no one kills me. It's occasionally disconcerting."

"Occasionally?"

"Frequently. However, I think we've managed to shock him. Tea, civility, and an astonishing absence of blood."

"Blood is common, in your quarters?"

Severus lifted a dark brow. "Distressingly. Death Eater revels, you know."

Remus snorted, then laughed, then stilled. "There was no advance warning, then?" 

"Not where I could predict the outcome. I was reasonably sure about the room, about the Ministry. I didn't understand, though looking back I suppose had it occurred to me I might have, that Black would be involved."

"You might have, how?"

Severus waved his hand between them. "A hundred things that were said, conversations that alluded to things which, had I put them in the right order, I suppose… it's visible, with hindsight. I've no idea if I'd ever have thought it in foresight."

Remus nodded and sipped his tea. He had no idea what to say, now that the rush of anger, which he'd known was unreasonable in the first place, was fading. Usually, these private meetings evolved (or devolved, depending on one's point of view) into mindless blowjobs or frenzied handjobs or, as last time, urgent tumbling onto the nearest horizontal surface; however, right now hardly seemed the time. He took another thoughtful sip of his tea.

"I suppose you're going to go all maudlin now, dripping great werewolf tears in my sitting room."

"Are werewolf tears somehow special?"

"Only in that they come from werewolves. Not like phoenix."

"Or crocodile."

"Oh? I wouldn’t know. I was referring merely to medicinal properties, not motivation."

Remus pursed his lips. "Either way, no. I suppose there are tears to be shed, but I'll avoid dripping anything untoward on your carpet."

Severus set down his cup and stood. "Pity."

"Pity? What, you wanted me to cry for you?"

"No." The scowl that accompanied this word was impressive. "However, usually when we speak alone, Lupin, there are untoward fluids involved."

"I… was just considering that, but it hardly seems appropriate."

Severus snorted. "I've never been exceptionally concerned with propriety, and I'm certainly not going to allow the death of Sirius Sodding Black to change that. Besides. What better means of burning off some of that crackling anger you came in with? You must admit, I'm an old hand with rage."

"I'm not angry any longer. Or rather, not at you, which I suppose is your point. Always one for the cold practicality, aren't you?"

"Yes. However, if you need a soppy Gryffindor reason: it would involve the vaunted physical contact that reportedly all humans crave. And if you need one personal to the situation: consider how much your friend enjoyed shitting on rules."

"There is that."

Severus took Remus's teacup and put it back on the tray, too, then crossed his arms over his chest. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, are we fucking to exhaustion, or shall I commence marking papers and allow you to see yourself out whilst I undertake another in the endless succession of insomniac nights that only increase in frequency with age and the increase of pressure?"

Remus considered, then stood as well, feeling the flush coming into his face as he answered. "I suppose I could use some contact. Plus, we wouldn't want you getting no sleep."

"It wouldn't be the first time--or the hundredth, either. But, for the love of God, Lupin. Stop blushing. It's a fuck, not a marriage proposal." He turned and moved across the room, looking back over his shoulder when he got to the door. "Bed's this way."

Remus took a step to follow, then faltered. A triangle comprised of only two points was no triangle; it was a line, stretching infinitely forward and back, defining only one dimension. For a disconcerting moment he felt as though every undefined dimension was crowding around him, pressing in on his one slender line.

He wondered what would make the line break, and looked toward the open door as he realized that in fact, in fact _obviously_ , he already knew what had made a triangle a line. The same thing would make it a point, insignificant and alone.

Perhaps he should make the break quickly. Cleanly. Clean cuts healed better, right?

"Do you plan to examine the cracks in my mantel all night, or were you hit with a Petrification charm?"

"I was just considering the issue of relationships torn away versus relationships ended." 

A strange expression flitted over Severus's face, then faded away. "Which has what to do with fucking?"

Remus said nothing and followed him into the bedroom. It would still be a clean break in the morning.

**-::- 1996-97 -::-  
-::- one -::-**

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Severus looked up from his newspaper as the other chair at his table pulled out and a particularly stupid cousin of the Carrows sat down.

"The weather? The Muggles are running scared and Scrimgeour can't find his arse with both hands and a self-lighting torch," Nymphadora said. She was wearing the broad nondescript features and dull brown hair of the imbecile in question, a young woman who would reliably say certainly she'd seen Severus today, if asked; her resistance to memory interference via Legilimency was less than none. Still, he'd had to ask the question and get the correct response, just in case; his position was increasingly precarious and he was reduced to this sort of contact in dingy London pubs, with Albus both ill and so frequently gone.

"I'd heard." He folded his paper over and set it down, then chatted about nothing of consequence for several minutes, offering his napkin when she jostled her drink. He wasn't sure whether this bit of clumsiness was a part of the act or merely convenient, but when the napkin returned, it was with a folded parchment. He made his excuses and stood, leaving his newspaper on the table, still folded, for her to take when she left. 

He didn't open the note until he was safely back in Hogsmeade, in the room he'd sometimes used before above Aberforth's pub. He was surprised that the words were written in Lupin's hand.

Well. Not surprised, perhaps; it made sense that he'd have details to pass along from his interactions with the werewolves--in fact, discussion of Greyback's location and intentions were on the second page. Still, he hadn't seen the man since the wee hours of the morning after the night of Black's death, and had concluded that whatever twisted and unhealthy relationship they'd had, for the past twenty years, it had died then as well.

Too bad; his soppy Gryffindor reasons had been, much as he'd never say it aloud, sound ones, and he'd hoped to maintain the only relatively positive physical association he'd had since… ever. 

He lay back on the bed to read the note, taking advantage of an evening with no plans in particular to read the more slowly than he otherwise might. He was startled when, five minutes after he'd arrived, there was a knock at the door.

He sat upright quickly, hoping irrationally that his thoughts of a moment earlier had been answered by the cosmos and it would be Lupin. Or, he amended after a moment because he wasn't willing to leave it at that, someone else from whom he might get what he needed.

It was only Aberforth, bringing up supper.

Severus took the food and ate it, beginning mechanically: soup with a deep spoon and bread with heavy brown crusts, still hot from the oven. Aberforth, despite the appearance of his business, was a decent cook, and the food was satisfying if not especially sophisticated, so after the first few bites, his enthusiasm grew.

He sopped up the last of the broth with his second thick slice of bread, and took the lid off the plate that held the pudding. 

It was chocolate cake. He shook his head and recovered it, then pushed the tray aside and returned to the bed, wondering whether the reminder was deliberate.

Aberforth was related to Albus, so he thought the odds better than even, it was.

Meddling old fools.

He reread the parchment and committed it to memory, then rendered it to ash with a flick of his wand and a puff of flame.

Perhaps he should eat the cake.

**-::- two -::-**

Tonks returned to 12 Grimmauld Place, tired and gray, from another meeting with Severus, and Remus sighed. She didn't like delivering the post back and forth, for which he couldn’t blame her; Severus was evidently angrier each time, and remaining in a particular form, one that wasn't born of her own imagination, was trying for her.

"Anything new?"

She shook her head and handed over the newspaper, then flopped down into the chair, her hair listlessly brightening from dull brown to something that might charitably be called mud pink. "He's a bastard," she said. "A bastard and I don't trust him."

"I know." Remus unfolded the paper and glanced over the contents. "But with Albus so ill--Severus thinks his mind is becoming clouded, and I have to say, when I last saw him, I had the same thought--someone has to keep things in order, if we're to have a chance. If _Harry's_ to have a chance." He set aside the parchment that had been folded inside the news, and moved forward behind Tonks's chair to reach over the top and rub her shoulders.

He arched her back and looked up at him upside down. "Doing her is depressing. Why are there no other Metamorph Aurors again? Honestly, doesn't it seem there should be recruitment efforts?"

He chuckled. "Well, I suppose it would be a convenient talent, but then, by that logic, Sirius…" he broke off, then shook his head ruefully. "…would have been a terrible Auror, but at least he'd have been good at tracking people down."

She pulled her chin back down to a normal posture, then dropped it forward as he continued to drag his thumbs down the back on her neck and out toward her shoulders. "Feels good." Her hair brightened slightly as she relaxed, and eventually, he came around and dropped into the couch opposite her. 

"It's killing you, isn't it? Everything you've got going on this year."

"Nah. I'm a big bad Auror, love. Nothing could be, right?" She wrinkled her nose at him, the looked ruefully up at her auburn fringe. "Or maybe a little. Still, we all do what we have to do, right? Can't not."

"Can't not," he agreed. "Maybe in the summer things will be better."

"Maybe." She rocked forward to stand, then joined him on the couch, leaning against him easily. "I'm starting to think I'll never live in a time without a war on, you know?"

"I know," he said dryly. "I'm enough older than you to remember the last one depressingly well."

"That's because you're ancient," she teased. 

"Quite. Old, gray, poor…"

"It's a sign of having survived." 

"Yes. Quite the badge of honor," he said. He looked down at her. "I suppose it's better than the alternative; still, I'd rather have a nice, quiet life, with no war, no betrayal, and no damn spies." He was surprised how bitter he felt, saying that, but he forced a smile. He was trying to make her feel better, after all; she was too young for this shit.

She grinned back, then held up a hand and Summoned a bottle of whisky from the cabinet. He caught it before it reached her, rather than hoping she wouldn’t drop it, and handed it to her. She twisted off the lid, then clinked the bottle against nothing in the air. "Here's to surviving to become ancient." She took a drink, then handed the bottle back.

Why not? He drank as well, then added, "And to life beyond the war." He took another long draw, and so did she.

"And not being gray."

"Don't think I can change that."

"Yeah, but one day, I'll be able to." She looked up at her fringe again. "When things are less fucked up."

**-::- three -::-**

"That was what you meant, wasn't it?"

Severus spun, horrified at the lapse to his attention that had led to him not being aware there was someone in the room as he came in, bags and parcels in his hands. Lupin was in the corner of his sitting room, tucked deep in the battered wing chair. He quickly recovered and nodded. "I beg your pardon?"

"You said, once, that you believed you would lose people who meant as much to you as Sirius did to me."

"Albus was hardly my partner in crime." Severus bit his tongue against asking how the hell Lupin knew where he lived; the house was Disillusioned, so a searcher wouldn’t find it at a casual glance, and Unplottable, so they wouldn’t find it magically, either, which only left those who knew where it was and intended to see it. He supposed perhaps at some point Black had mentioned seeing him in the neighborhood, or Potter had. Or, come to that, Lily, though that would have surprised him, for reasons he didn't care to dwell on.

He'd considered flight, in the days after he and Draco had first arrived here, but the place had had the advantage of familiarity and obscurity, and when two weeks had passed and there had been no sign of uninvited guests, he'd concluded the contingent that urgently hoped for his messy death didn't know where to find him. He'd relaxed. Perhaps he ought not to have done. 

"No, but he was important to you."

Severus scowled. "He was important to our cause, and--"

"And somehow, your actions were compelled."

"None of which explains what you are doing here."

Lupin pursed his lips. "It might. It doesn't explain why I'm not killing you for being in too bloody deep that you have to kill the man who has been the caretaker of so many of us."

"Is that what you think? Benevolent caretaker?"

"I didn't say benevolent. But he took care of you, Severus. And me. And, I suppose, Harry."

Severus snorted. " _Took care of_ is one way to put it." He paused. "But yes, I suppose you've made a correct assumption."

"Are you all right?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Well. Not a good one."

"This, Lupin is the story of my life."

"Yes, and there are others who could say the same, but you didn't answer my question."

Severus sighed. " _All right_ is a relative concept. I am no more all right than I was when my father banned the use of magic in this house. I am no less all right than I was when Evans… Never mind."

"So, miserable, then, but going on with it."

"So, yes. I did answer your question."

"After a manner of speaking, I suppose."

"What are you doing here, Lupin?" Severus considered going into the kitchen to put away his groceries, but he hadn't seen this man in over a year, and wasn't sure he wouldn't kill him while his back was turned, despite his words. "Surely you haven't come for another comfort fuck? Bit late for it, and I suppose you've other friends filling that slot now."

"Looking to you for comfort would be an exercise in futility."

Somehow, that statement made Severus feel more secure. He shrugged and went to put away his groceries. Lupin followed him into the kitchen, and Severus handed him the tea and pointed to the cabinet, then sorted out the rest of his consumables from potions ingredients. "So, you thought you'd wait several weeks after the funeral and then come check on me?"

Lupin shook his head. "Not really."

"News to pass along?"

"Some. Nothing I couldn't have sent the usual way."

Severus finished stashing paper bundles in the cracked cabinets and turned, leaning back against the counter, arms folded over his chest. "I've never been much for games, Lupin. If you want me to keep guessing, you're going to have to provide a considerably better incentive." He widened his feet and glanced pointedly at the floor between them. Lupin's tongue came out to moisten his lips, and Severus watched him evenly for a moment, then glanced at the floor again.

"I…" Lupin bit his lip, then stepped forward and knelt. "I didn't come here for this," he said as he unbuttoned and fumbled with Severus's robe. His nostrils flared as he uncovered Severus's cock, and he reached, focused greedily on his prize. He licked his lips again, wetting them, and leaned forward.

Severus groaned as his cock slid into the wet warmth of Lupin's mouth. He hadn't wanted to miss sex, but after a year--no, fourteen months, he couldn't help correcting himself--of calling up the images in his mind as he stroked himself in the dark, he'd forgotten just _how_ good it felt when someone else's hands and tongue were there, just there. "You came for tea, then?" 

Lupin looked up, eyebrows raised. 

"I'm continuing to guess. You used to be entertained when I maintained my train of thought while you nosed about my crotch like an ill-mannered dog in your boyfriend's kitchen."

"No," Lupin said. "Not tea." He took Severus's cock back into his mouth for one more good slurp, then rocked back onto his heels and stood. His wand was out, and Severus only had time for an instant of panic once again at how fast he could move, and then they were both naked and Lupin was back down on the floor, dragging Severus down on top of him. "Fuck me."

Severus felt for his wand, or either wand, to cast the spells, but Lupin caught his hand. "No, just fuck me." He spread his legs wide, knees up, reaching down to pull his cheeks apart as though to make his meaning clear. "Shove your cock into me and make me come. Fuck me."

It was a clear enough direction, and Severus was more than ready, so he didn't argue. He pressed forward against the resistance and in, and irrelevantly wondered how exactly he'd forgotten this was _also_ better than his own hand, and then he stopped thinking, ramming home again and again. "Like this? Is this what you wanted?"

"Fuck, yes. Don't stop." Lupin was all but ignoring him, thrashing on the floor and jerking his cock fiercely until he came, splashing stripes and drops up over his chest and onto his chin. "Keep fucking me," he said, voice tight. 

Severus guessed he was feeling some pain, now that he'd already come, but that thought only made him more inclined to comply. He pumped harder, gripping Lupin's knees and forcing them wide as he watched him wince. "What brought this on?" he asked. He was close, so close, and he dug his fingers into the backs of Lupin's thighs. "What made you so desperate?"

Lupin caught his breath and hooked his heels around Severus's hips, rocking up, not answering. Instead, he ran his fingers through the mess on his chest and slid them into his mouth, and Severus groaned, forcing himself as deep as possible as he came.

He dropped down flat, breathing heavily, bruised kneecaps throbbing, cock slowly softening.

"Tonks is pregnant," Lupin said a moment later. "We're getting married Saturday."

Severus felt cold. He raised up on his hands, grimacing as chest hairs pulled from the drying come, then pulled out of Lupin and Summoned his robes. He looked down at Lupin, sprawled naked on his kitchen floor. "Why are you telling me?"

"Well. We just fucked. I thought--"

"You thought you have another of the eminently and persistently fucked-up Blacks on the other end of your dick again, and you might as well go back to this, as well? You might have mentioned. Thought if you think I'm going to fuck her too, just to complete the parallel, you're wrong."

"It wasn't like that."

"No? Just a coincidence, then, that you decided the way to deal with your news was to have me fuck you bloody." Severus sighed and pointed his wand at the fireplace to kindle a flame. The chill in his body was only getting worse. "Get out."

Lupin stared up at him. "I didn't mean…"

"It was just a fuck. Now, I'm tired. Get out."

Lupin stood and located his trousers, limping slightly. Severus blatantly watched as he painfully raised one leg, then the other, to put them on. "Oh. They're moving Harry early."

Severus nodded, checked the date, and waited for Lupin to leave.

**-::- epilogue -::-**

Severus crossed his arms and leaned against the wall--not that there was a wall; it was more a moderately-peopled endless bright expanse of no color at all, with a wall he knew was there, which had no physical characteristics whatsoever.

He looked to the left, at two women arguing.

He looked to the right, at familiar redheads laughing as a short woman in purple scowled. He blinked. Oh.

Oh.

Those were the Prewett boys, which implied… he straightened up, pulling his weight off the wall in startlement.

He knew he had died; this had been apparent because having one's carotid artery punctured by a large snake, regardless of one's cleverness and preparations, was almost certainly unsurvivable. However, he hadn't quite, until just this moment, connected that this meant he was _dead_.

Well. That was an odd failure, and one he couldn’t explain.

He settled back against the wall to consider, affecting a pose of boredom as he took in his surroundings afresh. Everyone here was young--twenty, perhaps, or twenty-two. If he looked carefully, accounting for age, knew nearly everyone around him, though certainly not everyone he knew was here. He considered this for a moment; it implied some sort of arrangement of the dead which would require both location and time, as well as some means of sorting by honorable intentions, to accomplish. He glanced up into the endless white, wondering whether such a grid required three dimensions.

Not that there would have to be dimensions, if there could be nonexistent bright walls and incompatible ages and prank-playing twins that had been dead twenty years right next to a man who'd been dead five--fifteen? thirty?--minutes.

Well.

He took his time here, looking at everyone he could see, wondering whether it might be possible to cause someone he expected to be here to come into view.

After all, if he was going to be dead, and yet have consciousness, he might as well find something to do.

He estimated it was twenty minutes before he found someone interesting. He snorted. Minutes were likely meaningless here. And yet, it had felt like twenty. He straightened up again, still chuckling quietly, and started walking toward the figure in the distance. Black had been here for quite some time, but as he was sitting alone on a non-existent bench to the possible south, elbows on his knees, hair hanging over his face, perhaps he'd be willing to provide a distraction. Certainly few of Severus's other acquaintances were in this place, and even though Severus was still awkward with others, he thought they had things to talk about.

And then Black shifted and opened his mouth to speak.

To Lupin.

Who was here, on the far side of Black.

Severus could hear them, but not understand them, and his steps slowed.

The two of them got up and walked off together, saying something about Harry, seriously but never the less light. Severus took another step, but remained standing in place as they vanished together.

He made his way slowly to the bench that wasn't and found himself a seat.


End file.
